I’d never heard any of Maxo Kream’s music before listening to this album; after seeing his name here and there on Twitter whenever people brought up good Trap music, I started building interest in him. Once I read the headline for Yoh’s review, I decided to finally give him a shot.

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Work Wilderness, Beatboy
Grannies Mexiko Dro
Capeesh Feat. Trippie Redd Tommy Kruise
BUSSDOWN Wilderness
Hobbies Ethereal
Go Mitch Mula
Beyonce Sonny Digital
Astrodome 2 C-Note
Love Drugs Suicide Christ
Pop Another Teddy Walton
Janky Wolfe de Mchls
Atw Feat. 03 Greedo Beatboy
Roaches Wilderness
5200 Beatboy

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The first track sets a high bar for the rest of the album. The buoyant production is a perfect match for Maxo’s bouncy flow. Right from the start he demonstrates his storytelling abilities. He makes it clear that he comes from a super rough environment.

My brother Jude was jackin’ niggas; robbin’ andale
‘Til I went inside his room and stole his AK
Stupid ass decision, I regret it everyday
A nigga caught him slippin’, shot him right inside the face

This shit is hard as fuck… The way the beat switches up to that sample based production is heavenly. The second track is even harder than the first one.

I don’t like the production as much as I did on the first song, and Maxo’s flow is a little repetitive, but lyrically this is some of the hardest shit I’ve heard in a long ass time.

My Granny oldest son is Alvin Jr., call him Uncle Main
That’s my favorite Uncle, on occasion he smoke crack cocaine
Petty thief and junkie, but he always had my most respect
When I was six, I seen him stab a nigga, and he bled to death

I’ve seen some people making comments about how his breath control is crazy, but it’s obvious that he punched a lot of bars in. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

When I was 12 he got me high; my first time ever smokin’ grass
He caught his girlfriend cheatin’, grabbed the Glock, and shot her in her ass

This nigga seriously grew up living a fuckin’ nightmare. The next track features Trippie Redd, and has a really infectious beat. Trippie’s background vocals sound really good too. Some of the lyrics were a little… Uh…

She want to eat on my skeet
Like milkshake, Kelis

Trippie Redd’s verse was decent. I mean, it was pretty terrible lyrically, but he sounded good. I like the song, but it’s far from my favorite. The album honestly plateaus after the second song, and it doesn’t really make it’s way back until the end. You pretty much know what to expect from the rest of the entire project once you hear the first three songs.

The fourth track BUSSDOWN has a DJ Mustardish beat. His flow is kinda catchy, but the song runs outta steam really quickly for me. It’s not a bad song, but it’s not something I’d ever have the desire to return to. I like the darker sounding production on Hobbies, but as a whole the song is pretty much just more of the same. It’s good tho. A featured MC probably would’ve helped keep things interesting. The song’s just under 2 and a half minutes long. There’s just two recitals of the hook with a verse in between. I enjoyed it on the first listen, but it’s not much better than the previous few tracks. Mitch Mula flips the same sample that appeared on Extradite by Freddie Gibbs for the fifth track. I think I heard it in another song as well, but I can’t remember. The album kinda picks back up a little here. Maxo switches his flow up a little bit for the first verse, and the hook is really catchy. D. Flowers had a cool verse too.

Fuck the police when they hit the block, we gon’ run from them bitches
I should’ve been in Olympics, the way I be jumpin’ them fences

The production from Sonny Digital on the Beyoncé interlude is pretty dope, but as a whole it’s a pretty underwhelming track. It kinda just sounds like an attempt at recreating a Waka Flocka song. In fact, Maxo name drops Flocka and a gang of other popular musicians throughout the song. It really just feels like filler. Despite being labeled as an interlude, it’s longer—and slightly more enjoyable—than the track is precedes. Astrodome, Pt. 2 is easily the wackest song on the project. The production is boring, and I really don’t care for the pornographic content. Things thankfully pick back up for the following song, Love Drugs. Suicide Christ—great name btw—put his ass in that beat. Maxo goes in about how his love for drugs is and always will be stronger than his love for any woman. It’s pretty fucked up. That beat is hard tho. Pop Another has a more ethereal sounding instrumental. You can probably guess from the title what it’s about. I think I like it a little bit more than the previous track. It’s mostly due to the production tho. At this point, nothing about Maxo himself is really impressing me. I feel like I got everything I needed with the first two tracks, and the remainder of the album is just recycled content. I’m not feelin’ Janky. I can definitely relate to the content about fake friends, but Maxo’s vocals on the hook are uh… They’re bad. I liked the production. It’s not that bad of a song. It’s not something I’d ever listen to again tho. That 03 Greedo guy sounds like a 12 year old version of Trippie Redd on the song ATW. He did a good job singing the hook tho. It’s definitely one of the better songs in my opinion. The beat is really dope. There’s only one verse, but it was nice. The album actually makes a pretty good comeback right at the end. It kinda sucks that a lot of the middle section sounded so similar. Roaches is definitely one of the best songs lyrically. The final verse is really heart wrenching. He goes in about how his family suffered through Katrina & Harvey.

Told Toby book the plane; I gotta be there by tonight
But all this hurricane rain made the airport cancel flights
I’m like, “What the fuck? How?” I’m thinkin’ like, “Wow”
Prayin’ that she don’t drown, dear Lord, just get her out
She worked her whole life to move the family out the hood
Just to lose everything she had in the flood

The production on the final song is really good. That’s pretty much all I have to say about it tho. I enjoyed it, but nothing else about it really caught my attention.

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So that’s the album. I’m glad I checked it out, but as a whole it just gets old really quickly. I’ll for sure be looking out for more of this dude’s work in the future, and I think anyone who’s tired of that typical mainstream “Mumble Rap” sound will appreciate this. There’s a lot of good material here. There’s not a single track on this project that stood out as being especially terrible. However, there’s also not really anything here that completely blew me away. This dude’s got a good thing going tho, so I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on him.

Favorite Song: Work
Least Favorite Song: Astrodome, Pt. 2

C

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